A huge thank you to Editor Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart for honoring my work with a 2021 Best Of The Net nomination.  Congratulations to the other nominees!

 Thank you to Stephanie K. Bardy, David K. Montoya, and Jeff R, Young for publishing my magic 9 poem today in The World Of Myth Magazine.

https://jayzohub.com/darkmythproductions/theworldofmyth/97/poems/the_seven_sleepers.html?fbclid=IwAR3nTyAPTwWD0hM8dUuQsR3c6PdcrzxcBC3JIwFCEyO3BI5cP85PYpIXHCM

The Seven Sleepers 

The seven sleepers hid within caves 
to escape religious persecution. 
A young septet laid in quiet graves, 
heed this history, born in Syria. 
Set deep in the grotto to be saved, 
they emerged three hundred years later. 
Those pubescent well-planned panicked knaves, 
they had found the ultimate solution, 
although it was a very close shave.

                             Tower of Bones

A parade seen

from the perspective

above the clavicles of a king among men;

or lengthy fields of bluebonnets,

or guitarists on stage.

He counted train cars aloud to me as they passed.

Now as I stand at ground level

and watch his funeral procession go by,

I long to once more

climb that tower of bones,

to view the majesty

of this life's moment

while perched atop my father’s shoulders.

© Imbler, 2018

Modified Deity While The Seconds Tick Away

A bronzed and ageless god

of vague living years 

stumbles down dusty streets, He

has downed the old medicine

like candy to prove history

and destiny are neither twins,

nor that his

past is frozen. His reinvention

of his persona

and identity

having been transformed 

night after night

gives me a touch of

foreboding.

Such a shame both

he and time are such

changelings

and mountebanks.

© Imbler, 2019

 My mother has died

Pen cries tears across the page

She'll be immortal.

©Imbler, 2021

Buried Treasure

Donating those precious gems

and capturing bodily mementos,

otherwise brought to an end,

will be treasure I will gladly share.

Why should my heart be still?    

Why should my eyes no longer see?

Much of me will be absent,

while sad murmuring music

is played in requiem,

for what is considered the due solemnity of the occasion.

Meanwhile, someone will be able to continue

much of my physical history,

and the wonder of my design will not be wasted.

So, do not bury me with such great riches.

Just as ancestors bequeath that of most value,

so will I pass on my fortunes,

and know I have improved another’s life.

© Imbler, 2017

The Berlin Wall 

Guarded concrete ideology,

a physical Iron Curtain.

Not meant as a careless exhibit,

only a once-upon-a-time demarcation.

An unreliable window,

with bias reveal,

showing cold trust,

in an era of the inflexible issuing

of forbidden encounters.

Patrolled along road rail

or checkpoint Charlie,

at nine border crossings

by desperate duty guards.

Later, protests of the unacceptable division,

and a historical speech,

then a bill,

created the first pleasing gap.

The assured happening of destruction

created new binding friends,

and a once unlikely family was born

in this clipped decade.

One side filled with art,

One side bare,

Two sides of one coin kept apart,

Finally, a scene most fair.

©Imbler, 2019